Roni Loren on the 'Fifty Shades' effect on book covers

National best-selling author Roni Loren shares an exclusive reveal of the new covers on the books in her Loving on the Edge series from Berkley Heat. Still Into You is out now, Fall Into You arrives in January and Caught Up in You lands in August. Why the new looks? I'll let her explain.

Roni: Hello, all! First off, I'd like to thank the HEA blog team for letting me stop by today. *looks around* Love the new look!

And how fitting that the blog has a new style because new looks are what I'm here to chat about today. Walk through the romance section of any bookstore in the last few months or scroll through Amazon and you can't help but notice the vast shift in the look of romance book covers, particularly erotic romance covers. Yes, yes, we all know why. Let's call it the 50 Shades effect.

And if you talk to readers, they have very mixed feelings about it. You'll get everything from:

"Yes, finally! Now I don't have to be embarrassed reading these books in front of my kids/husband/strangers."

To:

"NO! You'll have to pry the man candy from my cold, dead hands."

Most of your pro-clench/man candy cover people seem to be longtime romance readers like me. We love our sexy covers. We like getting a visual of the character (even if it's just his abs). And, frankly, many of us don't give a flip who sees what we're reading. (I write the stuff, so that ship has already sailed for me. No one is under the impression I'm reading the classics.)

Here's the previous cover of Still Into You.

But there's also another group of readers who would and COULD like romance if they gave it a chance, but they're turned off by the stereotypes ... and the covers. And that's the group the 50 Shades phenomenon captured.

So publishers have taken notice and have shifted the look of a lot of erotic novels. Not simply to be "trendy" but because another discovery has come about due to this shift. Stores such as Target, Walmart and Costco ... even airport bookstores, which would have never considered putting an erotic romance on their shelves, are now stocking them. BUT only if they have the toned-down covers -- no overt sexiness.

Getting into those types of stores and markets is a big deal -- for the author and for the genre. It can mean the difference between becoming a best seller or not.

Therefore, when my editor called to tell me they were rebranding my covers, I was both excited (Yay! I could attract new readers and maybe get in big stores!) and sad (But I love my steamy covers *pets books*).

However, the first outweighs the second for me. I write books because I want people to read them -- preferably a lot of people. : ) And I do like the more elegant, understated covers, too.

Honestly, it was pretty fun this past week when I had to send cover ideas to my editor for the eight parts of my e-serial coming out next summer. Instead of just saying, "Put a couple with such-and-such hair colors," I had to think about what objects or images were significant for each individual part. It pushed my creativity buttons.

So, I'm embracing change and looking forward to my books sporting a new look. And I hope you like them, too!

What do you think about the changes in romance covers? Do you have a preference? How much does a cover matter to you?

You can find out more about Roni and her books at her website, RoniLoren.com.